Phi Ta Khon Festival, Dan Sai, 2011

A bunch of us rode over to Dan Sai for the 2011 Phi Ta Khon festival, leaving CNX at different times but all arriving on the first day of the festival. The old hands will say that as this festival is now in the Lonely Planet, its too commercialized. Perhaps as the election was on the Sunday, cutting the festival short one day, the tourist turn out was not so high. What ever the case, it was a load of fun with good company and a few beers along the way.
Trip reports of previous years are on this site so without being too repetitive hear are a few snaps;-

We got a few rain showers but the band played on powered by how knows what in a bottle

A lot of different bike groups were there including some heavily tinkered KSR's

and you can get a new rim fitted in less that half an hour

getting the old rim one off is a snip

Perhaps because of the damp, some of the local concoctions seemed to have starting problems. However we had race mechanics a plenty amongst us to help them get going. The briefing on what to do for bump starting......

A happy biker now up and running......

Pretty funky plough master

Trying to figure out what he needs to do to his Fat Bob to make it look like as good as this

and everyone you need to know was there

We carried on after the festival to Loei and then on to ride the famed R211 from Chiang Khan to Nong Khai along side a very high Mekong river. It was so spectacular we rode back in the opposite direction the next day.

For anyone who hasn't been to this knees up I would say 'give it a go', you wont be disappointed. The ride from Uttaradit to Dan Sai is worth the effort in any event with lovely long planes, rolling hills and some nice little twisties coming into Dan Sai.
Next time I will come back along the R2331 through the Phu Hin Rong Kla National Park which I am told is a ripper of a ride.
Bon Voyage!

I must be what you refer to as an 'old hand'. Having been to several PTK's in recent years, it should nonetheless be done once. (I actually headed down past Um Phang as an alternative this year).
The Mekong - there's a great site - Mekong River Commission - where you can monitor the rises & falls of the river through Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam & to some extent China. I find that following river levels at the Chiang Saen base makes it esay to wing up there to see it at its mighty best - I tend to head up when its around 7m+ (for means of comparison when you were there it must have been between 3&4 metres). Tamilla GH is another interesting spot - if you head down to the Mekong via the steps beside the guesthouse you can see a sign on the corner of the building indicating the level the river has reached in flooding (by then it around 10/11m at Chaeng Saen station).

Some piccies at last.
I met up with Ron & Kop in Uttaradit.
The Seeharaj was our place of stay - it could be better for the price.

Breakfast the next morning saw the delightful Ms Kop arrange a birthday cake for Ron after brekky.

it was pretty funny,especially our happy birthday "tune" in the breakfast dining area.

Onto Dan Sai & our place of abode this year

a petite hut, not quite worth the festival price of 1,500 baht. We did however have the honour of being the very first guests. Big deal some of you might say, & so it was, not everything worked, opened or closed properly. Ha. Ha.